When it is close to the Chongyang Festival, it is reminiscent of the sweet and sticky Chongyang cake, which is a big festival in the old times, and people's attention is not under the Mid-Autumn Festival. Chongyang cake is an ancient custom. In the old days, Wuxi's cake dumplings would be made early in Chongyang every time they arrived. In Beitang, there is a LuJuxing cake dumpling shop, and few people know about it today, and when it comes to Beifangzhai at the mouth of Beitang Street in the bridge, there are still many people who have a deep impression. The Beifangzhai Cake Dumplings were open until the early 1990s when Beitang Avenue was widened. From its predecessor, Lu Juxing Cake Shop, this cake shop has a history of 70 years.
Another village cake dumpling shop
In the 1920s, Lu Juxing opened a "Lu Juxing Cake Dumpling Shop" in Jiangyin Lane. This cake shop mainly supplies soup dumplings, square cakes, and magnolia cakes, and has a very good reputation; it not only wins the popularity of the urban townspeople, but also attracts many villagers who come to the city to do things, and when they finish their business in the city, they always have to carry some square cakes and magnolia cakes back to their hometowns in Lu Juxing. Therefore, as soon as the incense meeting ended, the villagers crossed the river in pairs and came to Lu Juxing to eat square cakes and soup dumplings. Before leaving, bring some magnolia cakes with you.
Dafang Cake Shop
Magnolia cake is a kind of dim sum that Wuxi people like to eat. In the old days, magnolia cakes were not available all year round like today, but only in early spring to Duanyang. The reason is that at that time, the magnolia cake was a real "magnolia" cake, and the rice flour made of the cake was filled with the juice of the white jade flower that only bloomed in early spring, so it had a magnolia flower fragrance, called magnolia cake. After the magnolia flowering period, it is natural not to do it. Today's magnolia cake is just a "rotten meat cake". The reason why Lu Juxing's fame is so big is because Lu Juxing attaches great importance to quality, such as meat filling, he must choose the pre-leg essence, the juice is boiled with meat skin into skin and bone jelly, and also stipulates how much soy sauce and how many onions and ginger are required for accessories, and the proportion is strict. Therefore, the soup dumplings and magnolia cakes here naturally taste good and have a lot of juice.
Magnolia cake
Today's soup dumpling shops generally only play the sign of "four-color soup dumplings", and most of the shops in the old days were the same, but a few such as Lu Juxing cake dumpling shops are "five-color soup dumplings" and are supplied all year round. The five colors are: pure meat filling, vegetable lard filling, bean paste filling, sesame filling, rose lard filling. Lu Juxing pays attention to the purity of quality, the selection of materials is exquisite, the oil of vegetable lard filling, must choose a piece of lard plate lard, and the sesame filling must be made with fragrant new sesame seeds. And this fifth "color" rose lard filling, the choice of roses must be the back house roses. Lu Juxing is not far away from the old Sanzhen delicatessen, so people at that time had to go out to run errands, in addition to bringing a few boxes of meat bones, but also a few boxes of Lu Juxing's cakes and dim sum, which was a real gift at that time. And the villagers of the four townships, if they bring back a bunch of magnolia cakes from Lu Juxing to give back to people, it will be a generous gift.
When Wuxi fell in 1937, Lu Juxing Cake Dumpling Shop was also bombed and burned down. In the 1940s, the guys of Lu Juxing Cake Dumpling Shop laid a two-bay façade at the mouth of Lianrong Bridge and Beitang Street, and opened with "Beifangzhai Cake Dumpling Shop" as the door, continuing the characteristics of Lu Juxing, so the characteristics of Lu Juxing all year round are also here as always, eating and eating.
Lotus Bridge
In early spring, spring is warm and blossoming, here is the lard cake is the most popular, there is today can not see the onion fragrant salty lard cake, there are also sweet glutinous moderate bean paste lard cake, green as emerald, red as purple jade, tempting appetite, especially the cake inlaid in the crystal clear plate lard, more and more appetizing, even if it is not like to eat fat meat, will also like to come to two pieces. The most beautiful is the wort green dough, using fresh wheat leaves or oat leaf juice, fragrant, the filling core is peeled red bean paste made of bean paste, Wuxi people called "fine sand". Not some of today's bean paste, many of which use broad bean paste to add color, rather than red beans. Then stir-fried with cooked lard and an appropriate amount of ice chips sugar, put a plate of lard in the middle, giving people a fat but not greasy, fresh and refreshing taste, which is the best spring cake cake and the best offering of the Ancestors of the Tomb Sweeping Tombs of the Qingming Dynasty.
Lard cake
In the summer, people are hot and sweaty, easy to feel irritable, and have a poor appetite, and the store not only serves mung bean porridge, but also soft and refreshing muffin cake dumplings. The muffin powder cannot be kneaded, and it is steamed directly on the basket after spraying with coarse dry powder and mixing well. Summer square cakes, in addition to meat filling, rose lard, vegetable lard, bean paste filling and other varieties, especially added sugar mint square cake, refreshing and appetizing, very popular. Lu Juxing's square cake, the square cake up a layer of powder made a little thinner, steamed can see through the filling, so rose red, mint green, bean paste purple, fresh meat yellow, light and leisurely color, four corners of snow white, let people see salivating. In the ratio of japonica rice to glutinous rice used in yellow pine cakes, the proportion of japonica rice has been increased, and it is steamed and sold, and the food is refreshing. In order to achieve the off-season is not weak, Lu Juxing not only turns the flower head on the variety, but also makes a fuss on the filling core. In the middle of summer, the meat stuffing dumplings change the routine of pure meat filling, and are carefully fried with hoof meat shrimp, flat tips, shiitake mushrooms, nasturtium and fungus, and the dough flour is prepared in a ratio of 8 to 2 with glutinous rice and japonica rice, which is juicy and refreshing, and does not lose the appetite. The weather is hot, Wuxi people pay attention to food cold eating, they also launched pine blossom dumplings, double stuffing dumplings, one layer is bean paste, one layer is sesame, bean paste less sugar is not greasy, sesame seeds strive to spray incense, hanging enough to satisfy the appetite of diners, it is really a wonderful product of summer snacks.
In autumn, pumpkin dumplings are highlighted here. Peeled and steamed pumpkin with a heon, kneaded into the rice flour, the flour balls turn golden brown, and the lard fine sand core is served to give a fragrant and soft texture. On the Chongyang Festival, Lu Juxing's Chongyang cake is unique: it is refined with brown sugar, giving people the unique aroma of cane sugar, adding hundreds of fruits and dates in the middle, and sprinkling red and green melon shreds on top. The shape is also exquisite, and there are many kinds of muffin-shaped flat circles and diamond-shaped shapes. There are diners, there are also refined boxes, Wuxi many in Shanghai to open a factory to open a shop boss, have to come here to pre-customize, there are also junior filial piety to the elders of the variety is not as simple as now. The Chongyang Festival of that year was no more "pushing the board" than the Mid-Autumn Festival, which also reflected the good traditional morality of Wuxi people respecting the elderly. In autumn, there are also jujube mud cakes here, steamed with dates, peeled and pitted, then kneaded into glutinous rice flour and steamed, to be cooled and cut into three centimeters square, or cut into diamond shapes, the same as Chongyang cake is brown, sweet but not greasy, sticky and not sticky, is a good product for the elderly to nourish and warm the stomach.
Chongyang cake
In the winter, because some people make their own cake dumplings at home, such as winter solstice dumplings and rice cakes, Lu Juxing uses his brain on the variety of flowers. The first is to launch the Houzhai rose, known as the "Southeast of the Houzhai Rose", to produce rose lard cake, and the aroma of the new rose is fragrant. The second is the emerald turquoise mint lard cake, put on a large plate of lard, crystal clear, in addition to eating, many people brought back to steam to eat, or mixed with diamond powder egg paste, the cake sliced after soaking, put into the oil pot to make oil lard cake, crispy skin, soft glutinous inside, is a good snack for entertaining guests in the New Year. A bright red cake made from dried fruits, preserves, walnut kernels, pine nuts, spring plums, melon seeds and winter melon strips in the rice noodles. Of course, the main product of winter is osmanthus rice cake. This kind of osmanthus strip cake, although there is no filling, in addition to the red and green melon shreds, is the fresh osmanthus flower of the year, the sweet fragrance of the nose floats in the winter air, giving people a strong taste of the year and a feeling of abundance...
Rose lard cake